“What am I no to ask, daddy?”
“Ton’t pe asking who made you—who
was ta father to you, my poy. She would rather
not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a Cam’ell
poth. And if she couldn’t pe lofing you
no more, my son, she would pe tie pefore her time,
and her tays would pe long in ta land under ta crass,
my son.”
But the memory of the sweet face whose cold loveliness
he had once kissed, was enough to outweigh with Malcolm
all the prejudices of Duncan’s instillation,
and he was proud to take up even her shame. To
pass from Mrs Stewart to her, was to escape from the
clutches of a vampire demon to the arms of a sweet
mother angel.
Deeply concerned for the newly discovered misfortunes
of the old man to whom he was indebted for this world’s
life at least, he anxiously sought to soothe him;
but he had far more and far worse to torment him than
Malcolm even yet knew, and with burning cheeks and
bloodshot eyes, he lay tossing from side to side, now
uttering terrible curses in Gaelic, and now weeping
bitterly. Malcolm took his loved pipes, and with
the gentlest notes he could draw from them tried to
charm to rest the ruffled waters of his spirit; but
his efforts were all in vain, and believing at length
that he would be quieter without him, he went to the
House, and to his own room.
The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and
the long forbidden room lay exposed to any eye.
Little did Malcolm think as he gazed around it, that
it was the room in which he had first breathed the
air of the world; in which his mother had wept over
her own false position and his reported death; and
from which he had been carried, by Duncan’s
wicked wife, down the ruinous stair, and away to the
lip of the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man
whom he had just left on his lonely couch, torn between
the conflicting emotions of a gracious love for him,
and the frightful hate of her.
The next day, Miss Horn, punctual as Fate, presented
herself at Lossie House, and was shown at once into
the marquis’s study, as it was called.
When his lordship entered, she took the lead the moment
the door was shut.
“By this time, my lord, ye ‘ll doobtless
hae made up yer min’ to du what ’s richt?”
she said.
“That ’s what I have always wanted to
do,” returned the marquis.
“Hm!” remarked Miss Horn, as plainly as
inarticulately.
“In this affair,” he supplemented; adding,
“It ’s not always so easy to tell what
is right!”
“It’s no aye easy to luik for ‘t
wi’ baith yer een,” said Miss Horn.
“This woman Catanach—we must get
her to give credible testimony. Whatever the
fact may be, we must have strong evidence. And
there comes the difficulty, that she has already made
an altogether different statement.”
“It gangs for naething, my lord. It was
never made afore a justice o’ the peace.”
